The Angel
by the author formerly known as
Summary: Jasper unintentionally stumbles upon the loose ends of the truth surrounding the past of Bella's angel... and unwittingly reveals the monster that is his little brother. bellaedward, my spin on edward's rebellious years, post eclipse WIP
1. Preface

The angel had landed, supposedly, sometime in the 1920s. No one had ever seen a body, or even a stray feather to indicate its presence. There was only a hole in the middle of the woods, gaping like open jaws, sides crumbling, seven feet into the ground. A fissure shaped like a person.

"Do you see those indents next to the thighs?" Alice asked, gesturing daintily to the spots where the shape of the body was distorted; stretching from where the creature's knees would have been and stopping just below the torso, the earth was crushed even deeper in two long shapes. "Those are supposed to be the wings."

The angel's landing spot hadn't been destroyed by local teenagers a thousand times over only because it was so far removed from anything. Though it had been roughly a century, the hole had remained more or less the way it was discovered. The weather had done some damage, but an old, poorly constructed roof had done a fair job of protecting it from the elements. The informational sign, put there some twenty years ago, was in much worse condition than the open earth.

Then again, a hole in the ground could always be dug out again.

Jasper didn't say as much out loud, because he didn't want to ruin his wife's– or his little sister's– mood. Jasper watched them peer happily at the space which had once held an angel. Bella's eyes, turned gold within the last year, were alight with excitement.

Her first few years of being a vampire had been stressful, and very painful for her at times. Not being able to see her father and her best friend was still something that bothered her. But the worst of the bloodlust was over, and they moved now so she could have yet another whack at high school, something she was excited for. (Though why, Jasper couldn't imagine.)

They'd stopped because Bella had thought it would be fun to look at, and everyone– even Rosalie– was doing whatever they could to make her first year starting afresh as good as it could be.

Strange as it was, Edward, standing back from the others, was the one who was permeating the air with thick aggravation, the one who was making Jasper's day a little more confusing, and just a little more uncomfortable; ...along with Emmett, who was in a worryingly mischievous mood. As he thought this, a splash of fierce emotion brought his attention back to Edward.

And he worried:

How could Edward be so upset when Bella looked so happy?

A cloud of guilt and annoyance entered Jasper's consciousness, and he knew that Edward had heard him. He turned, smiling and thinking, _It's okay; I understand_... _Once you've seen the grand canyon, holes in the ground just aren't that exciting, do you find?_Edward grinned crookedly at Jasper, and the blond turned back to the rest of his family with the same sense of relief he had every time he saw that look on Edward's face. This was the happy Edward they'd thought had faded away; the brother they lost when they left Forks... and the brother they gained when Bella's heart stopped beating.

"Well, girls!" Emmett exclaimed suddenly, stepping in between Alice and Bella and throwing his arms around them. "_Sisters_."

Alice swam in Emmett's touch, so tiny beneath his massive biceps, trying in vain to escape the crushing half-hug. Bella on the other hand threw her own arm around his waist and declared, "Emmett, my dearest big brother– right after Jasper of course!" Bella threw a wink in Jasper's direction, one she had obviously meant Emmett to see. "Is there something you wanted to say?"

Six people there chuckled– but neither of Jasper's brothers did. Emmett had a mock somber look on his face, and Edward was quiet behind them.

"Alice... Bella... I love you both very much, and it pains me to be the one who destroys the pure innocence of my sweet sisters, but there is something you must both know about this place where an 'angel' once lay: There has been no angel here."

"Awh, Emmett!" Alice whined, "Why do you have to ruin things! We were having fun pretending anyways..."

Emmett laughed uproariously, and the others' confusions mingled in the air and on their faces.

"I didn't say something special hadn't happened here. I said there was no _angel_."

Bella pouted, her full lips pulled into a more devastating, 'heart broken' expression than perhaps even Alice could have managed– each member of the family (but mostly Edward, of course) had discovered all too soon her natural ability for wheedling.

Emmett cleared his throat. "You see, girls, once upon a time in the, er..."

"1920s," Alice supplied in a short, clipped tone which was somehow still friendly.

"In the 1920s!" Emmett continued with more enthusiasm. His voice dropped to a huskier level, sounding like a swarm of bees buzzing in the summer. "There were a couple of vampires. A man and a woman. And one day– or perhaps over the course of several days..." Emmett grinned luridly.

He pointed grandly to the hole before them, finishing: "They fucked themselves right into the ground."

"Emmett!" Bella and Alice both moaned– along with Rosalie, who looked horrified. "That's an awful thing to say about a place where angels are supposed to have walked," the gorgeous blonde sniffed afterwards, honestly offended; perhaps because she still clung to the thought of the holy world, as a saviour from the one she lived in.

Emmett told Rosalie simply, a serene smile briefly taking over his face: "Vampires fuck where an angel has walked all the time."

Only Emmett could make such a thing into a compliment, and only Rosalie could handle being called an angel and a monster all at once– she would have flushed were she still human, so pleased were her emotions.

"Seriously, though," Emmett added, and crouched down, pointing to the areas next to the thighs– the imprint of the angel wings. "That's where his knees were, see? ...I'd say this guy was about Jasper's height."

Jasper peered in, Carlisle doing the same, along with his daughters. Esme stayed back, shaking her head in exasperation. Edward's mood had gone beyond the boundaries of Jasper's skill– who needed magic powers? His foot tapped impatiently on the floor, his mouth set in a hard line. He wanted to leave.

But Jasper knew he was the only one to have noticed– Even Esme, though she pretended otherwise, was completely drawn in by Emmett's idea. "My, my, son," Carlisle finally muttered in disbelief. "I think you're right."

While his family chattered and drifted away from the gaping earth, Jasper stood rooted to the spot, staring at the indentations along the thighs– and so did Edward, offensive fury coming off him like a stench. But there was something else there, too, something that made Jasper cringe with indignation and shock.

Emmett was right about another thing.

The male vampire was very close to being as tall as him. Within a few inches of Jasper's height, in fact.

And if he was reading the emotions coming off of his brother properly, within a few feet of where Jasper was standing.


	2. Heat

The heat clung to the three vampires like a silken shroud, rolling across the water and onto their faces. The air was alive with static energy– Emmett cracked his knuckles, but it may have been the sound of a strike of lightning upon a dead tree. Jasper hung back, watching warily as Edward stepped out from beneath the low-hanging branches, their leaves brushing his face like a lover's caress.

Though he'd been with the Cullens for two years– long enough to understand why they called themselves a family rather than coven, and long enough to find room in his heart beside Alice for his new siblings and parents– there were times when Jasper still felt misplaced, out of a loop that was already complete long before he and Alice stumbled across it. Or long before he'd stumbled across it– Alice seemed to fit in perfectly, her vibrant personality ensnaring them just as easily as it had him. She and Edward got along particularly well, working on a wavelength where no one else was quite able to reach them.

Jarred roughly from his thoughts, Jasper snapped his neck quickly to the side. Emmett had clapped one massive hand across his back and was grinning obnoxiously. (Or moronically, Jasper thought with a wry smile, and somewhere ahead, Edward laughed.)

"It's a spring," Edward said out while Jasper and Emmett stared unconcernedly at each other, no words stretching between them, only the knowledge that whatever was to be said was probably quite pointless.

"For swimming?" Emmett asked, his attention turned away from whatever horrible joke he was just about to make. Together, he and Jasper followed their brother's steps out of the trees to get a better view of the water before them, a grassy ring in the middle of the forest leading into a deep pool.

The three of them made a cutting image there– the dry grass as it stood limp and coarse, the milky, calm water, and themselves, more beautiful than the stars and sparkling just as brightly– all of these trembling in the immense heat, seen from a distance like ghosts at an African water hole.

Jasper inched closer, peering uneasily into the water, and he saw that Emmett did the same. He felt, rather than simply knew, that Emmett hesitated for just the same reason as he. It was true that he had been welcomed into the Cullen family as a brother, and it was true as well that he was beginning to sense that a bond as brothers in more than just name was developing.

But Jasper couldn't say with certainty that he was prepared to get naked in front of Emmett and Edward. He doubted that before he had come the other two had been going on merry jaunts in the nude as well. How often did you come across a spring in the middle of the forest, and how many times among this would you immediately think to whip off your clothes, especially with someone like Emmett around? Jasper could imagine the crude comments then, but felt immediately guilty as he did.

Jasper had come to be very fond of Emmett, but it was still sometimes hard to forget that beneath his usual rude behavior, Emmett understood the general principle of decency.

As he stared at his surly reflection, and Emmett's next to it, he heard a splash and many tiny ripples disturbed the image the way the heat did to the real things.

Both Emmett and Jasper looked to the bank a few feet away, astonished to see Edward's clothes lying there rumpled and discarded. They turned to each other with open mouths, and in that instant, it was not just in his own body that Jasper felt pride and competitiveness rise.

Neither could believe (hurriedly throwing off their clothes, fumbling awkwardly with buttons as well as shame) that Edward, _Edward_, the king of all asexual, prudish, uptight seventeen year old boys everywhere had just taken his clothes off before they. But it was so: Edward got naked first, and Jasper and Emmett were left to look like blushing school boys afraid to change before gym class.

Edward surfaced as Jasper was pulling his t-shirt over his head, quipping, "It's warm!" and dog paddling (faster than any dog or man) to the other side of the spring. Emmett hopped in next, followed quickly by the blond, and soon the three of them had forgotten any sense of unease or embarrassment. Spending time together as brothers had suddenly become the most comfortable thing in the world– but things never stayed that way for long when Emmett was around.

Edward had only stood up for a moment, in one of the shallower parts of the pool, when Emmett happened to turn and see it.

"Holy shit!" he all but screamed, for _"it"_ was a massive jumble of scars, silver and shiny like hard plastic, upon Edward's already marble skin.

"Your inner thigh looks like Jasper's_ face_," Emmett exclaimed, and Jasper scowled self-consciously, always too aware of his scars.

God forbid, Jasper thought, that Emmett might have said that to someone else. Before that day, he marked Edward as an uptight guy, but it was then that he saw a brighter side, a sharper but not cutting side, to his brother.

Edward raised a single eyebrow, only saying cooly, "My inner thigh? That's quite the place to be looking, Emmett."

Jasper laughed, scrambling out of the pool and clawing at his jeans, pulling them on as Edward also got dressed. Emmett opened his mouth mindlessly a few times, a fish who somehow found himself in water just a little too deep for him.

"I wasn't– I mean I just turned around and happened to see. Oh come, on!"

Emmett glanced furiously from Edward to Jasper, an appalled expression on his face.

"You don't actually think I was checking Edward out!"

Jasper shrugged, looking away only for the reason of hiding his smile, and he saw Edward making a similar move.

"Really! You two are so ridiculous!"

Emmett's screech followed Jasper into the forest and across the rough ground, his bare feet meeting the twigs and grass as Edward's subdued laughter met his ears.

"You're both crazy!" Emmett shouted after them, and caught up in the arid heat, the shining sun, and the infectious joy of the world around him, Jasper didn't remember until later, catching sight of his reflection in a polished window, the harsh pain of getting his silver marks, the burning, the brief moment of defenselessness, and wondered how in hell someone had gotten close enough to Edward– to his _legs_, no less– to give him those scars.


	3. Home

Anchorage, Alaska sees about 236 cloudy days every year. It was cloudy when the Cullens pulled up to their new home in six different vehicles, with Jasper's motorcycle thrown in the back of Emmett's jeep. Just as it would be cloudy the next day. And the next day.

And the next.

The car door of Rosalie's M3 opened and stuck out one of her long legs, bare against the cold Alaskan weather, three inch heels on. She slammed the door shut behind her, smiling.

"Perfect weather," she commented, and stood by the door waiting. Carlisle tossed her the keys and with a flourish she unlocked the door for the first time. Rosalie pushed it open and called "Honey, I'm home!" and the house was theirs.

Bella and Alice were the first to dart inside after Rosalie, and the girls immediately began selecting who got which room. The others ventured in more slowly, taking their things with them, and looking about the front rooms. But Jasper paused at the entry, turning to find that Edward was still sitting in his Aston Martin, gazing at the horizon with a dead stare. Jasper sat down in the car next to Edward, shutting the door behind him. They sat in silence, and Jasper wondered, _Why didn't you tell her, Edward?_ without really meaning to ask. Then he thought, _Why not us?_ even though it wasn't a question he wanted to be heard.

Edward answered anyways. "I didn't... want her to think less of me. I... never... actually... _knew_ any of them."

_Them?_ Jasper thought with shock. He could feel Edward's embarrassment and shame.

"There were... a few." Jasper could also feel the understatement.

Then he ventured aloud, quietly, like a distant song on the wind, to avoid the others hearing, "Edward, you know it's not as if Emmett or I would ever have cared... or Rosalie, for that matter, or..."

"But," Edward cut him off. "You have to remember, Jasper... Back in those days, I wasn't coming home to you or Emmett, or Rosalie... Or Alice... or Bella. There was only Carlisle and Esme, and... I couldn't tell Esme something like that. She would have been... disappointed in me."

"You told them about all those people you killed while you were gone, but not about...?"

"It seemed somehow... Less explainable. Drinking blood is a vampire's nature, after all."

Jasper fell into silence both of words and thought. His mind slowed down and no intelligible words formed.

"You don't..."

Edward never finished his sentence, and Jasper couldn't hear what was never said. But he felt the doubt in Edward's heart and assured him, "We all make mistakes, and you are just as much my brother, whom I love, today as you were yesterday."

Jasper opened the car door and stood to leave.

"And obviously, whether you choose to make this public information is your choice."

He smiled briefly before walking away, but Edward wasn't even looking at him. Jasper climbed the front steps and crossed the threshold of his new home for the first time. He waited momentarily, but Edward stayed behind.


	4. Pictures

The girl ran into a dark alley, but knew instantly that it was a mistake. The man behind her grinned, his shadow high on the walls. She was trapped.

He didn't realize it, but he was trapped, too; just behind him stalked the most horrible monster to walk the earth- the most horrible and the most breathtakingly beautiful. His red eyes were-

Jasper shook himself out of his reverie. The last few days he'd been consumed with thoughts of Edward's past, all of it, from the day he came screaming into this world to the day he went screaming once more into an even brighter, more vivid world. And everything that had happened since then. It was funny how learning something as simple as details of Edward's sex life completely changed his character. Discovering that someone wasn't a virgin like you thought they were shouldn't completely morph their character- but for _Edward_, for Edward it did make a difference. Jasper thought of the way he treated women with such utter respect it sometimes confused him. He wondered if Edward had _always_ treated women that way. The girl whose body had formed a hole in the earth like the landing spot of an angel- had she been treated with respect? Or had Edward even known her name?

Jasper thought curiously about the villains Edward had pursued, the monsters he had chased down at night to save others. The rapists, murderers and thieves he had removed from life. His mind wandered avidly over the music Edward listened to and the type of pictures he would use as a desktop and the way he forgave others but never themselves, fitting them all into a new image of Edward he never would have imagined before, marveling at how immensely small things fitted into a concept in order to have it make _sense_.

But mostly, Jasper thought about angels.

He thought about the 'angel' who had made that hole in the ground- both the reality and the fantasy. He wondered why it was that someone had immediately thought of a fallen angel when they saw that. And when they said that an angel had fallen there, had they meant an angel had been injured? Or was this implied in the sense of a noble creature who'd made a terrible mistake? Jasper smiled at that, wondering how Edward felt about having that applied to the situation... He thought it fit properly. Jasper had always looked at Edward as a pillar of goodness, and it was a bit confusing to think of Edward casually taking some girl on the forest floor, even if it wasn't something Jasper would call a 'sin'. Jasper mulled this all over from every angle he could think of, because he knew that though he didn't look upon it as a sin, Edward did.

Edward's religion was one thing about him which made him the person he was, and though Jasper hated to admit it, Edward was an example of someone he wished he could be like: faithful, in control, caring, and passionate. And strangely self-depreciative at the same time as he was an arrogant ass.

Jasper chuckled aloud at that thought before becoming somber again. He turned away from the window he'd been staring out of, still wondering about angels, and how he perceived them, and how the world perceived them, how Bella did, and Rosalie did, and more importantly, how Edward did. He didn't understand Edward's guilt over the deaths he'd caused during the 20s... The last few thoughts ran through his head all at once, and two of them ended up meshed together.

Jasper moved quickly down the hall, knocking on the door to Rosalie's room. Rosalie wasn't the best company, but he was suddenly grateful that they were home alone. He realized that this conversation was going to be awkward enough without anyone else listening in. Imagine if Isabella overheard- or, God forgive, Edward.

"Yes?"

Jasper opened the door at the sound of Rosalie's voice. She was still unpacking her things, making as slow a job of it as she could, though they'd been there for a few days now. The others had quickly decided to check out the mountains which rose up behind the city. National parks tended to offer good hunting, and it was so near to home that everyone was understandably excited. Rosalie, as usual, had opted to go later on her own (though Emmett would probably end up going twice in a row, so they could 'explore' together). And Jasper, Jasper had simply had too much on his mind.

So here they were.

Rose stared at Jasper with a questioning, but open look. He was immensely thankful for the peaceful mood she was in.

"Uhm. I don't mean to pry, but I just... was curious about something."

"And which something might that be?" Rosalie asked coolly, raising an eyebrow. Jasper sensed that his obvious awkwardness amused her.

"It's about..." He couldn't finish his sentence, unsure of how to word it without bothering her. Was there a way to word it without bothering her? Jasper didn't think so.

Rosalie's face became a dead caricature of her beauty, and he knew that she understood what he was getting at. She studied his expression for a moment, and nodded for him to continue.

He held back a sigh of relief and pressed, "I mean it's not about _that_, really, it's... If, that night, instead of saving you... if you had survived on your own, as a human, and found out the next day... that he had been murdered, would you have..."

Jasper knotted up his brow, hating the empty look on Rosalie's face.

"I don't understand what you're asking," she told him simply.

"You know that Edward used to hunt murderers, thieves..."

"Rapists."

"Yes." For some reason, hearing her say the word made Jasper more comfortable, though he couldn't imagine why. "He seems to think it's as horrible to kill one of those people... as it is to kill an innocent... Because, even a monster, he says, has loved ones.

"If you woke up the next morning in the hospital, and someone told you Roy and his friends had been killed... would you call their murderer a sinner?"

Rosalie stared at Jasper. The silence stretched between them and Jasper asked himself why the hell he was there. He knew what Rosalie's answer would be, didn't he? Why did he have to mention this to her? She'd been in such a good mood and he had ruined it. Jasper felt awful and wanted Rosalie to forget he'd ever mentioned a thing.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I brought this up. I knew your answer.. I didn't mean to-" Words tumbled out, but Rosalie shook her head.

She ventured, "With Roy... I don't think he ever had anyone who truly loved him Jasper, except for his parents."

Jasper felt his nose wrinkle in his confusion, a strange habit of his. He had expected a simple 'No' from her, and wondered about the hesitance he felt from her.

"And me, of course," she added with a bitter smile. "Jasper, you of all people have to understand that there are many different ways to perceive a monster."

"Huh?"

Rosalie set down the dress she'd been putting on a hanger for her closet.

"The world's vision of a monster is not the same as my vision of a monster, or Carlisle's vision of a monster."

"...Or Bella's or Edward's," Jasper finished, his mind immediately connecting to earlier thoughts. "Just like everyone has their own image of what an angel is."

Rosalie glanced at him strangely as he said that. "Yes..." she ventured, "and Edward calls it a sin to kill a monster because... perhaps he understands what it's like to be the loved one of something others would call a beast."

Jasper paused at that. "What do you mean?"

"Jasper... You have killed many, many people." Rosalie looked directly at him, and Jasper felt ashamed, but it was only the truth. He nodded. "Imagine if, tomorrow, you were walking alone and someone figuring themselves to be righteous killed you. Though you have done your best to repent for your sins, it might be easy for them to justify what they did... because in the world according to that person, _you_ are a monster."

Jasper breathed in deeply, once again trying to fit together a complete picture of the person that was Edward, and finding it easier, _and_ more difficult with everything Rosalie had said. Then he shook his head and said, "Honestly, Rose, if someone did kill me because of the things I've done... I couldn't blame them." Sadly, he told her, "I already know that I'm a monster."

"But Jasper," she added with exasperation, "...Now imagine how _we_ would all feel if we lost you. Would Alice deserve the pain of mourning you because someone else thought you were a monster? Would I, as your sister? ...Or Edward, as your brother?"

Silence stretched between them before Rose continued, "Perhaps Edward thinks of the murder of a monster as a sin... because 'monster' carries a different meaning for everyone. And as you put it, an angel is a different thing to everyone.

"And sometimes, Jasper, an angel and a monster can be the exact same person."


	5. Documentation

Emmett's emotions flickered idly like a candle that fades and flares almost simultaneously. His amusement and outrage and indifference seemed to get tangled up, none of the three able to overcome the others effectively.

"What are you watching, Emmett?" Jasper asked as he came to stand behind the sofa, golden eyes focusing on his brother's casual pose while Emmett's own eyes were focused on the televison.

"Documentary," he replied simply. He frowned, brow furrowed and lips jutted out, and added, "It's about the realism of humanoid angels and demons."

The brothers watched in silence as a female guest breathlessly related her 'encounter' with a demon one night. Emmett snorted at her descriptions of shining light and fire, and Jasper only sighed patiently.

"You can tell before half of them open their mouths that they haven't the sense to interpret their normal surroundings, let alone any untoward activity they might stumble across."

"Hmm... That _almost_ sounded like a proper sentence, Emmett," Jasper said breezily.

As Jasper had known he would, Emmett laughed without insult.

Emmett's amusement at his brother's joke quickly turned to sharp interest and his entire body shifted forward subtly toward the television. Jasper had learned long ago to notice the tiny, insignificant actions that went with the emotions that surrounded him on a regular basis.

Jasper returned his attention to the documentary and saw why within moments. There was something in the way the next witness held herself, something in her eyes... Peace, Jasper thought. No excitement or moral outrage, no sense of grandeur or self-depreciation. Complete balance. He walked around the sofa and sat on its edge, leaning forward to better study every minute detail of her movement and poise.

She was elderly, with a squinting gaze and ash-gray hair. Her smile was small and full of awareness, that which comes with age and more importantly, the ability to accept.

"I grew up in Chicago," she told the interviewer. "In 1927, I was 15... far too young to be wandering on my own at night, but I did."

She said as much without batting an eyelid; it was a fact that clearly she no longer saw any worth in dwelling on, not after so much time. Jasper sensed that she felt it to be one of the least notable details of her story, though many others would have tried to play up their rebelliousness, he thought.

"I realized as I walked through an empty street that I was being followed. Another young woman in the neighbourhood had been attacked in her own home recently, and I was frightened. After awhile I turned into an alley, hoping to escape him by taking a route he wouldn't expect. I became lost."

Not _unfortunately, I became lost_, Jasper noted. Not _horribly enough, tragically_, or anything like that. She simply became lost. He filed that away in his growing profile of her emotional expression.

Watching television could be so complicated sometimes. He couldn't possibly understand what was said without understanding the emotions behind it; every facial tick and impatient shift was analyzed meticulously. He wondered how others– Emmett, in this case, intrigued by her words but not intently concentrating like Jasper was– managed to watch without being confused or at the very least frustrated at all.

"The man following me had me cornered."

The woman's expression shifted, until her self-awareness became a gentle glow, her hair framing a face that radiated with warmth. Jasper struggled to name it, trying to remember another time when he'd seen such a brightness like it. The emotion was... affection? Gratitude? Or perhaps some mix between the two, Jasper decided.

"That was when _he_ arrived." Her voice caressed the word _he_, as if speaking of one long loved. "He was undoubtedly inhuman– no person on earth could look like him. He was pale, and his eyes were black. But he was beautiful, immensely so. His hair was like bronze spun into threads," she continued softly.

"Shit," Emmett said, more shocked than anything else.

"At first I was frightened, but he was there _for_ me. While I stumbled from the alley, he kept my attacker from further pursuit. He was an angel sent to protect me."

The interviewer murmured something quietly that the camera had been unable to catch except in a nearly inaudible mumble.

"Yes," the woman answered. "I'm certain my attacker didn't live past that night." She paused, listening to the next question, intent, and smiled that small, ever aware grin of hers. The silence seemed to stretch, and Jasper felt his anticipation strung out like a wire on a spool, spinning quickly away from him.

"And if he did?" the woman said finally. "It makes him no less the creature who saved another from something terrible...

"An angel of death perhaps, but an angel nonetheless."


End file.
